The young American Lynn Blake is the assistant to the famous photographer Arno Leonardi. She accompanys him to Venice for a photo shoot. Suddenly her boss disappears under mysterious circumstances. Lynn meets a charming man, but he seems suspicious. Did he have anything to do with the kidnapping? Lynn is not satisfied with the Italian police work, so she searches for her boss herself - and soon finds herself in trouble. She finds clues in the glorious Venetian past and goes to a party during the famous Venetian carneval. There she runs into a billionaire, who could be an important witness - or the killer of Arno Leonardi ...

Enduring friendships and long-held vendettas come alive against the splendor and decadence of eighteenth-century Venice. In 1775 Venice--known to outsiders as “the brothel of Europe”--the tradition of mask-wearing has allowed adultery and debauchery to flourish. But Marietta and Elena, two friends at the Ospedale della Pietà, a world-famous orphanage and music school for girls, know little of that milieu--until they come of age. Elena is forced to wed the head of the Celano clan, a jealous, brutal man, while Marietta marries Domenico Torrisi, whose family vendetta with the Celanos is centuries old. Tradition dictates that the friends should never speak again, but their bond is too strong to break. As the French Revolution unsettles all of Europe, Elena’s husband frames Domenico and he becomes a political prisoner. Marietta and Elena plot to save him, and the women discover that Venetian masks have noble purposes, too--but will their efforts put their own lives at risk? Embodying the glitter and the treachery of the city it portrays, The Venetian Mask will keep you turning pages long into the night.

The road to master of disguise is a difficult and exciting one, fraught with equal parts danger and intrigue, but fortunately you don’t have to go it alone. The book you now hold in your hands will serve as a roadmap through the disguise terrain; novices and masters alike will find in these pages invaluable wisdom, advice and guidance previously unavailable in such a concise format. Recent years have seen unprecedented technology advancements. However, investigation and intelligence agencies still need field personnel; they need feet on the ground. To be effective, investigators and clandestine service persons need strong tradecraft skills that include the ability to disguise themselves. This book presents undercover disguise methods that came into focus in the clandestine services of World War II, evolved during the Cold War, and today features modern innovations. Here the reader discovers the latest disguise technologies, traditional and innovative methods not taught by police academies or included in college law enforcement and criminal justice curriculums. Customary purposes for disguise include to avoid recognition, support a pretext character and the corresponding undercover operation, prevent somebody accurately describing the agent, and to thwart physical surveillance. Naturally, some disguises are quicker to implement than others and some are more believable. Some disguises withstand prolonged close-up scrutiny, whereas others are suitable only when viewed briefly or from afar. The authors have removed the mystery and made short work of carving out a path for anyone looking to hone their craft in the art of disguise, ensuring success for all who are daring enough to pursue this road less traveled.

The relationship between medieval animal symbolism and the iconography of animals in the Renaissance has scarcely been studied. Filling a gap in this significant field of Renaissance culture, in general, and its art, in particular, this book demonstrates the continuity and tenacity of medieval animal interpretations and symbolism, disguised under the veil of genre, religious or mythological narrative and scientific naturalism. An extensive introduction, dealing with relevant medieval and early Renaissance sources, is followed by a series of case studies that illustrate ways in which Renaissance artists revived conventional animal imagery in unprecedented contexts, investing them with new meanings, on a social, political, ethical, religious or psychological level, often by applying exegetical methodology in creating multiple semantic and iconographic levels.Brill's Studies on Art, Art History, and Intellectual History, vol. 2

"The entire town is disguised," declared a French tourist of eighteenth-century Venice. And, indeed, maskers of all ranks—nobles, clergy, imposters, seducers, con men—could be found mixing at every level of Venetian society. Even a pious nun donned a mask and male attire for her liaison with the libertine Casanova. In Venice Incognito, James H. Johnson offers a spirited analysis of masking in this carnival-loving city. He draws on a wealth of material to explore the world view of maskers, both during and outside of carnival, and reconstructs their logic: covering the face in public was a uniquely Venetian response to one of the most rigid class hierarchies in European history. This vivid account goes beyond common views that masking was about forgetting the past and minding the muse of pleasure to offer fresh insight into the historical construction of identity.

"In this elegantly constructed study of the early decades of public opera, the conflicts and cooperation of poets, composers, managers, designers, and singers—producing the art form that was soon to sweep the world and that has been dominant ever since—are revealed in their first freshness."—Andrew Porter "This will be a standard work on the subject of the rise of Venetian opera for decades. Rosand has provided a decisive contribution to the reshaping of the entire subject. . . . She offers a profoundly new view of baroque opera based on a solid documentary and historical-critical foundation. The treatment of the artistic self-consciousness and professional activities of the librettists, impresarios, singers, and composers is exemplary, as is the examination of their reciprocal relations. This work will have a positive effect not only on studies of 17th-century, but on the history of opera in general."—Lorenzo Bianconi